» Posts Tagged ‘lenses’
Canon Raises the Bar with New 24-70mm F/2.8L and Overhauls Two Other Lenses with Image Stabilization
Need a new lens to go along with that new camera? Canon just announced three new full frame lenses: the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM, and updated Image Stabilized primes: the EF 24mm f/2.8 IS USM and EF 28mm f/2.8 IS USM. What’s significant about version II of the 24-70mm? Let’s take a look at some MTF chart comparisons and see if we can find out: More »
Last week I shared a “blind” shootout between seven sets of prime lenses. Viewers of the extensive test were instructed to pick their favorites and wait for the answer key to find out which lens was which. Now the answers are live with the videos, and downloadable .R3D files (it was shot on a RED EPIC) are also available: More »
What have we here? A nice addition to the roundup of lens options for the new breed of Super35 cameras. Indent Studios in Oregon hosted a shootout between seven different PL lens sets: the Cooke Panchro /i, Luma Tech Super 35 Illuminas, Red Pro Primes, Unique Optics Kenji Suematsu Series, Leica R Cine-Mod, Schneider Cine-Xenar II, & Zeiss Compact Primes v1 & v2. Shot on a RED EPIC at 5K, they’ve released the tests initially as a “blind” test — meaning, go ahead and watch them and pick your favorite lenses. Then, a week later, they’ll label the tests so you know which is which: More »
Zeiss’s popular Compact Primes are getting some brothers and sisters. To their current full frame, interchangeable lens mount lineup, Zeiss is planning on adding new Compact Prime CP.2s of wider than 18 mm and longer (or equal to) 100 mm, a compact tele zoom lens (70-200 mm, possibly), and a complete set of Anamorphic prime lenses — with a 2X squeeze, which at first I found a bit odd. More »
After speaking at AENY, a great community of film/MGFX folks in NYC, I was chatting with some DPs and one of them mentioned Chinese knockoffs of the Zeiss CP2 lenses. My ears perked up, as there’s a dearth of low-cost cinema primes in the world. The Zeiss CP2s, at $4k a lens, are in fact some of the cheapest available at roughly $20k a set. It turns out the Chinese knockoffs he mentioned retain the genuine Zeiss optics, for half the price. The question is, are they any good? More »
This is a guest post by Matthew Duclos of Duclos Lenses.
There’s no doubt that all of the new cameras announced in the past couple years are very capable in their own field and will prove to produce many, many beautiful images. Regardless of your camera choice, everyone is going to need to find a lens that fits their style and fulfills their needs for a range of productions. Whether you’re shooting a film school project or shooting a feature film, there is a balance to lensing your imagers. More »
A longer lens can flatten and widen a face, whereas a wider lens can pinch/pull facial features into an ugly distortion. This is true because of the varying physical distance to your subject that accompanies your choice of lens. This is not just a consideration for portrait photography, but also comes into play when choosing a lens for filming actors. For the the full size images of the thumbnails above, see photographer Stephen Eastwood’s site, or watch a video of how different distances (and accompanying lens choices) affect facial geometry by LensProToGo: More »
Digital cinematography often looks too clean to my eye, and I like “messing up” the images a bit (whenever appropriate). To this end, I bought a Lensbaby Composer Pro earlier this year, and, as always, my timing seems to be the opposite of impeccable: Lensbaby has just released a lens kit specifically for movie makers, aptly named the Movie Maker’s Kit. Here are the various lenses in action: More »
One of the reasons you hear so much about cameras on this site is not because cameras are all that important — which camera you shoot on is only a tiny part of the decision-making that goes into making a film — but because at no time in history has motion picture imaging changed so rapidly as right now. One of the ways it’s changing most significantly is in the convergence between still and motion imaging, and RED is at the forefront with their DSMCs. Their latest news is that they will soon start shipping their Canon mount, and it brings a lot of firsts to the table for a serious motion picture camera. More »
In response to the trailer for Like Crazy — the DSLR-shot indie feature that sold for $4 million at Sundance — some commenters asked about the merits of PL-mount lenses vs. Canon lenses. Traditionally, motion picture PL lenses are many times more expensive than Canon glass and offer better tactile, manual controls. But in the digital age, some of Canon’s features are suddenly handy, and RED recognizes this. More »
In addition to the low price of an HDSLR itself, a key factor in the hybrid video/still revolution has been the widespread availability of video-appropriate still lenses. Here, Caleb Pike of DSLR Video Shooter offers some good tips for adapting still lenses for video work: More »
Have you ever found yourself holding an SLR lens in one hand and an iPhone in the other, thinking, “if only I could use these two together?” If so — really? — you’re in luck. The iPhone SLR Mount is exactly what it sounds like — a $250 adapter that allows you to use any Nikon or Canon mount SLR lenses with your iPhone. The two-piece device looks like this (lens not included): More »
[UPDATE from Carl Zeiss at the bottom of this post.] Zeiss CP.2 lenses are a top choice among HDSLR and AF100/F3 cinematographers because of their optics, size, and weight. At roughly $4k/lens, however, they’re a tad expensive when compared to their ZF.2 still cousins (which contain the same optics and retail for around $1,500). Unknown Italian camera company kelvincamera has announced that they have successfully re-housed the ZF.2 with the CP.2 features (common front diameters, focus and iris markings, and fixed gear rings) and will be selling these “babyPrimes” for 35-40% less than the CP.2s (which would bring them in around $2,500). More »
Inspiration Studios, the same guys who brought us this humorous comparison of the ARRI ALEXA and RED EPIC, are back at it with a look at the high-end Cooke 5/i prime lenses. These aren’t lenses for DSLR or DIY filmmaking, but it’s an entertaining video (with a foray into NSFW territory): More »
Did you know you can change the shape of your bokeh by cutting out paper shapes and placing them over your lens? Maybe you did. I didn’t, though, and found out about this simple trick from DANIELS (the guys who brought us this music video), in their mini-video for “Who Do You Love” by Sue Scrofa. Hearts, shapes, letters, entire words: you can make your background highlights appear in the shape of anything you can cut out with scissors. More »
In a surprise move, Canon has announced two new zoom lenses with the cinema-standard PL mount (note the green rings!). The lenses are 14.5-60mm T2.6 and 30-300mm T2.9-3.7, rated up to 4K resolution, and cover a 27.5mm image circle (plenty large for Super35-sized sensors, but not large enough for, say the RED EPIC’s 33mm sensor). Considering Canon does not make a camera that natively accepts PL lenses, it would certainly make sense that their video division would also debut a large-sensor PL-mount camcorder to go along with these new lenses. Right? More »
Lensbabies are wonderful specialty lenses that create selective defocus effects on DSLRs (or SLRs, for that matter). But as soon as I pull the trigger and buy a Lensbaby Composer — which I love — Lensbaby comes out with the new Lensbaby Composer Pro. What does the new Pro offer over my oh-so amateur model? Mainly, it’s much better for video, because the mechanics are much smoother. Now I feel like one of the people in that Best Buy commercial. Here’s a look at the new Composer Pro in action: More »
The DSLR Cinematography Guide has several pages addressing lens use and choice. But the new cameras hitting the market — some with relatively new sensor sizes, like the Micro 4/3 Panasonic GH2 and AF100 — bring with them a new set of considerations. On their respective sites, Philip Bloom and Matthew Duclos have addressed the lens options for these cameras. First, here’s Duclos on the high-end F3: More »
I’m assuming for this post that you’ve read the bonus chapter on basic cinematography concepts that’s included in the free expanded DSLR Cinematography Guide. Anamorphic lenses are used for CinemaScope productions, wherein an oval lens stretches the image vertically compresses the image horizontally in order to fully utilize the imaging sensor. To achieve a 2.35:1 aspect ratio during projection, a corresponding anamorphic lens must be used on the projector. This is all well and good, but is it possible to use an anamorophic lens on a DSLR, instead of just cropping the image in post? More »
A couple of weeks ago, DP Timur Civan posted some stills on Cinema5D taken with an ancient 1908 Wollensak 35mm F5.0 Cine-Velostigmat hand cranked cinema camera lens. This diminutive lens produced some wonderfully atmospheric images (sans color correction, even). As someone who shot The West Side through the oldest Nikon lenses I could find, in order to give it the appearance of another time and another place (and by “oldest” I mean “cheapest”), I really appreciated these images. Now Timur has shot a video using the antique lens on his 5D Mark II, and it’s one of the most analog-looking videos I’ve ever seen from a DSLR: More »
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